The prediction of my Arab friend who is living in the US that there would be a successful US/Israeli attack on Iran within days, maybe hours, of last Friday has not yet come to pass.
As I told him, several US Arab allies and Netanyahu all asked Trump not to bomb Iran, yet, but my friend said that was just to keep the Iranians off guard, and, in any case, US policy does not depend on US Arab allies or Netanyahu, it is about repeating 1953 and getting our stolen oil back from the Iranians (and cutting off the PRC).
But I only talk with my Arab friend on Fridays, and I'm sure he'll tell me on Friday that the US overthrow of the Ayatollahs and installation of the (now, not so young) Shah will be very soon.
In fact, Israel wants time to upgrade their Iron Dome/David's Shield/Thaad/Arrow defense systems and replace all the munitions used defending Israel during the 12-Day War.
Of course, if one reads the mainstream US/UK/EU news, the Iranian attacks only killed 24 Israelis who were too slow in responding to the warning sirens and didn't bother going into the bomb shelters, and one missile (and only one) made it past the Israeli defences and killed 24 people who were outside where the missile landed. Israel suffered no other damage. And Trump easily and totally destroyed all Iranian nuclear bomb development, leaving them nothing except conventional weapons, but now they are building factories to build ballistic missiles, and these must all be totally destroyed, along with all the Ayatollahs, and the Shah must get his country and throne back (and the US must get all that stolen BP oil back).
If one reads Iranian/Russian propaganda channels on Telegram (RT, PressTV), or watches the Judging Freedom channel on YouTube, the Iranian missiles did a lot of damage to Israel, and Iran only used their older missiles. Also, the Israeli defences did stop a lot of incoming Iranian missiles, but they used up almost all the ammunition needed for their air defence systems to operate, and need time for suppliers to manufacture and ship new ammunition. And, of course, Netanyahu asking Trump to delay the attack on Iran fits much better with this narrative than the narrative in the mainstream US/UK/EU media that my Arab friend assures me is 110% correct.
But Israel ordered replacement munitions last summer, and, sooner or later, their air defence systems will be fully restocked and upgraded with newer and more effective components, and then Netanyahu will tell Trump that it's time to finish the job in Iran, but that might be much later in 2026, or even 2027, because it will take quite some time to restock and upgrade Israel's air defence systems. We know the attack on Iran by the US and Israel is coming, but no one knows when, just that it won't be too soon.
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Netanyahu's question, now, is whether to do the Big Thing: Nuke Iran!!! As best we know, Israel has about 100 (maybe more) nukes, and that could take out Iran so they would be unable to shoot back. It would also annoy the US, sort of, or the US might be very happy that Iran is gone and all the oil is radioactive so the PRC can't use it. The total oil from Venezuela and Iran is somewhere between 18% and 25% of the PRC's oil consumption, making a serious dent (but, of course, Russia and the PRC are working hard to move more and more Russian oil to the PRC).
So the US are certainly thinking, 'Maybe letting Netanyahu nuke Iran wouldn't be such a bad thing?'
If Netanyahu decides he can't wait, he has to go nuclear, that could happen almost any time. Not clear if he will coordinate on such a strike with the US, and not clear if the US would (or could) give an effective veto if he did.
So a conventional attack on Iran must wait months, maybe years, but a nuclear attack would be just as effective tomorrow as two years from now, with no chance of any Iranian response, and no one would dare nuke Israel if they nuked Iran. (Of course, Pakistan have already threatened to do just that, but the US and Israel don't speak much Urdu.)
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